The Joneses Are Here

I've been puzzling as to why yunnies hate mom-and-pops so very, very much. I was reading this post by EV Grieve in which he quotes an online review of an Irish pub that came down to make way for a new luxury tower. The reviewer writes:

"I hope places like this close down soon: We are all working on building a better downtown. I bought a 1.5 million dollar condo around the block from this place. I stopped in one weekday during lunch (i was off.) The place had 3 patrons at the bar, all of which looked worse then the other. The decor is lacking, the floors dirty, and the food was just ok. This place may be decent for someone who does not like finer things..."

And I wondered, as I have many times when reading similar commentary, what is this about? Why do yunnies feel such intense hatred of harmless, dumpy old places? The hatred seems deeply personal and expresses itself in a wish to destroy. It's one thing to say, "I don't like this place so I won't go there," yet another to say, "I hope it is eradicated." We hear this sentiment again and again in blog commentary and online reviews. It feels a lot like hysteria.

Then I realized (with thanks to Mr. Grieve): It's all about property values.



The yunnies are like suburban home owners, the Joneses who mow their lawns every Sunday and keep their porches freshly painted. Trimming hedges and weeding gardens, they want their neighbors to do the same--to not damage their property values. When a neighbor chooses to let their lawn grow, display chainsaw stump art in the yard, leave a car up on blocks in the driveway, or allow their paint to peel, oh how Mr. and Mrs. Jones go wild! "We are all working to build a better downtown," they say, "Why aren't you one of us, one of us, one of us?"



It is hysteria. "Burn it down! Run them out of town! A scourge on Elm Street!" the Joneses cry. Terrified by the specter of falling property values, they drag their neighbors into court, ordering them to keep up, keep up, keep up with us Joneses! And if you don't keep up...well, here comes good old blight, good old eminent domain, and didn't we need a new park anyway? Maybe something with cannons and faux piles of cannon balls, symbols of our terror of dirty, smelly natives who don't care about the finer things.

I have nothing against cleanliness. I like to see my elderly, immigrant neighbors sweep their stoops in the morning. This is Old World tidiness, not the same as New New York sterility. A little dirt is good for you--keeps the immune system strong. Today we're besieged by germaphobes. Their fearful suburban parents taught them to slather themselves and everything around them with antibacterial agents. Vongerichtification is their way of cleaning up the city.



The children of suburban Boomers have come back to reclaim the cities their grandparents fled years ago. They bring with them fear and hatred of anything urban. They bring suburban values that don't mesh with the city--and this is different from other, non-yunnie transplants to the city, who yearned to leave suburbia behind. The yunnies refuse to be city people. Dirt, rats, ugly signage? Clean it up, clean it up, clean it up! they say. Or else.

• Grandmother Jailed for Not Mowing Lawn
• Mow Your Lawn or Go to Jail
• Keep Up Your Curb Appeal!
• Form a Lawn-Mowing Task Force
• Disinfect America!
  

*Everyday Chatter

Is the new Stuy-Town Heaven or Hell? [NYO]

Mmm...the Belmore Cafeteria. [Urbanite]

False crap alarm at Ruby's, it was just dirt. [Curbed]

Michael Perlman, savior of diners, has a new cause in Queens: the 91-year-old Ridgewood Theater. Looking to invest? Click here.

Cheyenne Diner is about to make its move to Red Hook. [Urbanite]

I spoke too soon when I said the entire block of 6th Ave between 17th and 18th except for a holdout frame shop was closing down--that holdout frame shop? It ain't holding out anymore. Their move means every single business on the block has been pushed out:


The city has been giving millions of dollars in tax breaks to chain stores and bupkis to mom-and-pops. [Times]

More girls in pink--first it was SATC, now it's Legally Blonde. When will it end? [Flickr] via [Gothamist]

Oh boy, an SATC "schadenfreudian delight," my favorite! [EVG]

NYC not gritty enough for the movies--requires artful grittifying for that authentic NYC look. [Gothamist]

Saw this parked outside BBQ in the EV. For a minute I thought I was in Bush country, then I remembered, it's the new New York and the Joneses are here:

*Everyday Chatter

Here are some pics of that SATC mob scene. I keep imagining a modern version of the Maenads, with their "violence, bloodletting, sexual activity, self-intoxication, and mutilation." [Racked]

Speaking of bacchanalias, I do so love hearing about the A Building's crazy pool parties. Especially when they involve hedge fund guys taking drunken craps on the floor. [Curbed]

And speaking of crap on the floor, Bloomberg's really upset that his part in the SATC movie ended up on the cutting room floor. [City Room]

16th Street gets more condoschmerz as old #335 is bookended by the opened Modern and the soon-to-open Condominiums @ 333, which comes complete with an odd-looking round escape hatch in the roof--maybe they'll put in a fireman's pole. Now that's an amenity. But don't worry about the old tenants of #335--they won't feel squeezed because they're leaving. SVA signed a lease for the whole building, which is owned by Tyco. Remember them?


Ruby's of Coney Island is shuttered by the Board of Health after a guy taking a leak falls through the floor into a pile of shit surrounded by rats bigger than dogs. Now that's New York! Here's more on Ruby's from last summer. [NYO]

Where once was a community clinic, there will now be a gated condo. [Curbed]

Indulge in more mourning for the Bowery. [Voice]

Worth checking out: a lovely exhibit of drawings by AK Corbin at the Ansonia pharmacy on 6th Ave and 10th St.

Take a video tour of sailors' tattoos--hot stuff. [City Room]

Then take a walk on rapidly vanishing Fulton Street, where condos are fast replacing scruffy little shops and bars, like Ryan's. Even if they could co-exist, the yunnies won't stand for dirty floors--though, as we read earlier, they will take craps on their own floors. [EV Grieve]

Montero Bar & Grill

I went to Montero's this Fleet Week in the hopes of finding a bar full of sailors, like they had last year. I passed a trio of swabbies walking down Atlantic Avenue--laughing with their white bell bottoms flapping in the wind, bringing to mind Sinatra, Kelly, and Munshin in On The Town--but none were drinking at Montero's bar.


flickr photos

I did, however, meet a merchant marine who told me about his life dredging sand from under the waters of the harbor's Narrows, that stretch that flows under the Verrazano and out to the Lower Bay and to sea. It seems the ocean is constantly pushing sand towards New York City and this sand must constantly be removed. It goes into concrete, mostly, but approximately 90,000 tons of it went under the parking lot of Red Hook's new Ikea. They needed that much to fill the historic Graving Dock. The guy I met at Montero's was the guy who dredged that particular sand.

He told me about how, for the permission to destroy a piece of New York's waterfront history, Ikea was required to preserve the gantry cranes that lined the former Graving Dock, which many people tried to save.

"I guess they're landmarks," he said. "They painted 'em blue and put floodlights under 'em. Can you imagine that? Floodlights on a buncha cranes."



The Graving Dock is gone, but Montero's still stands. It's a museum of Brooklyn maritime history, filled with model ships so brittle a single touch could crumble them, sailor hats yellowed by time, bright orange life preservers painted with the names of ships that no longer set sail. The original owner, Pilar Montero, still lives and sits at the corner of the bar. A poster of her in Flamenco garb hangs on the wall next to her husband's portrait in dress blues.

You could wander the bar forever and still find more to look at. On one shelf, there's a greasy, black steam engine that was built years ago by a sailor named Santiago. Flip a switch and you'll find, like the bar itself, in a sea of change, it's still going strong.

Life goes on at Montero's. They recently brought in a karaoke DJ--every Friday night in June, at 10:00, you can make a drunken fool of yourself among the artifacts. As long as they have "Wonderful Town" in the songbook, I'll be there.

*Everyday Chatter

Despite dire predictions this winter, the Russo Realty visual smorgasbord is still standing strong. ForgottenNY's coverage is definitely worth checking out, by the way.


Remember when I said pink + cupcake + SATC = the destruction of Bleecker? Here's more proof. You have to see it to believe it. [Racked]

At last night's SATC premiere an "angry crowd surged against police barricades, cursing and stomping their Manolo Blahniks." Is it real? Is it a nightmare? Will somebody please turn this into a zombie movie? [NYDN]

In the film A Hole in a Fence, visit Red Hook's industrial decay, graffiti artists, and more as they prepare to vanish in the shadow of gentrification and the coming Ikea. [Gothamist]

While we're in Red Hook, check out this great sign on Van Brunt. Little dogs are not exempt from capital punishment! Especially those carried around in designer handbags:


The Tower of Toys was like many urban creations that "served as demarcation lines, stopgaps against encroaching gentrification." And now it's gone. [EVG]

Gammablog is putting together video of the Toy Tower's deconstruction. [GB]

More Blade Runner-style giant ads coming to our city. The Apocalypse is upon us. [Times] via [Curbed]

Owner of the Vongerichtified Beatrice Inn says, "Obviously, it’s become one of the best places in the world of all time." [NYO]

R&S Strauss

Recently, Curbed reported that the R&S Strauss auto parts shop on 14th and Ave C has gone on the market for $13 million, thus further pushing the eastern end of 14th towards possible luxurification.



I figured I better get in there and check it out. Browsing around car accessory stores is fun. Even when you don't own a car. There are many creative air fresheners, decals both sexy and scary, and novelty seat covers to discover. At this location, you will also find plenty of bling to trick out and generally "pimp" your ride. I asked the salesgirl if they were closing and she said, "No way! If we are, nobody's telling us!"



Strauss is an old company. According to their history, the R&S in the name refers to the store's founders, Harry Roth and Herman Schlenger, who opened their first shop in 1919. The Strauss part belongs to a guy named Izzy they merged with in 1983. It is now a global chain.

Chain or not, its loss from the eastern ass-end of 14th will still be cause for grief if it means what we think it means--an opening for the overall Meatpacking effect that is rippling up and down this main artery to reach deep into the East Village. The site has "flagship opportunity" written all over it. And all it would take is some brave "revolutionary" like Diane Von Furstenberg to move in and there goes the neighborhood. If she, and those like her, were willing to suffer the stink and blood of dead carcasses, what will they care about housing projects and powerplants?

And as we've seen from cupcakes and Marc Jacobs, the ripple effect grows quickly and powerfully. What will the loss of Strauss beget for an entire neighborhood?

Fear This!

*Everyday Chatter

Another Sex and the City star bemoans the death of NYC, as Chris Noth says: "New York is pretty much commercialized to the point of no return." He misses the "diverse eccentrics" and "different neighborhoods" that have "all been washed out; it’s very suburban... It’s all about sort of a corporate sensibility, and it’s squeezed out room for any other kind of sensibility.” Of course, he's right, but what sensibility did the squeezing? Maybe the one packaged, branded, and thrust upon NYC by SATC? [EOnline]

Andy Warhol lives--apparently, in the body of Marc Jacobs according to the current Interview magazine. This is the story of the new New York: We don't get CBGB, we get John Varvatos. We don't get Andy Warhol, we get Marc Jacobs. Nothing but high-priced simulations. Maybe Andy would dig it. [WWD]

The Chelsea Hotel tailors, Mr. and Mrs. Balabanis, are closing after 31 years in the neighborhood. Unable to bear another rent hike, they're retiring to Greece. [LWL]




Many 20-somethings who come to NYC (all of them white, most working as publicists and marketers earning decent starting salaries with much more to come) make big, big sacrifices to live here--like giving up pedicures and blonde highlights. [Times] ...and, boy, are Gothamist's commenters annoyed.

"Very blond, well-boned, expensively jeaned buyers have been pouring into East Village apartments for so long," except now they're blonder, younger, and more expensively jeaned as a 21-year-old spends $2.2 million to live in Alphabet City. [EV Grieve]

Charlie's Lives

Back in December I reported that the 41-year-old store Yes! This Is Charlie's would be forced to close due to rising rents on the eastern end of 14th Street.

More recently, The Villager reported on the March 31 closure, quoting manager Danny Rodriguez: “Mostly outsiders are moving in, and they couldn’t care less about us. All the new shops don’t cater to the people here. You feel like an outsider in your own neighborhood. To be honest, I don’t think they even want us here. They would love it if little by little we would just get out so they can move into our apartments."



Curbed picked up that story and their commenters confirmed Danny's suspicions, saying "Cry me a river," and "There's still too many poor people in Manhattan mucking up the City," and "Let them live in the outer boroughs where they belong," etc.

Curbed speculates that the eastern end of 14th is doomed, thanks to the "A Building, with its rooftop pool and glassed-in wealthy residents," along with other changes in the area, including Stuyvesant Town's frat-house transformation and the possible $13 million sale of R&S Strauss at Avenue C. I have to agree.



But the good new is...Charlie's lives! They found a new spot, miraculously, on Ave C between 10th and 11th. It's smaller than the last place, but still filled with odd coloring books, greeting cards in plastic tubs, and rolls of crepe paper. When I was there, two women walked in and greeted Charlie with kisses, saying, "We found you! Thank God--and we're sending everybody over."

Help spread the word, before Charlie's is eventually pushed again, next time off Ave C. This one neighborhood shop is still surviving in a city ever-filling with people who are pointedly, unabashedly, and aggressively hostile to the mere existence of places like it.

*Everyday Chatter

Bob Arihood gets into the 6B Garden to show what has been saved from Eddie Boros' Tower of Toys--a collection of hobby horses and other toys that a garden insider told me will likely be auctioned off to raise money for the garden. I'll keep you posted on that possibility:

photo: Bob Arihood

Speaking of lost toys, a member of the VNY Flickr Group just posted a bunch of great pics of defunct toy shop Second Childhood. They closed in February and I'm still mad about it. [jackszwergold]

VNY reader BaHa blogs about Kalustyan's, a great old place I've been meaning to get up to and haven't, so read all about it here and smell the spices. [Serious Eats]

Park Slope mommies kill one of their own--as their favorite hangout shutters thanks to the gentrification they helped bring: "like Saturn devouring his young, that insatiable gentrifying beast has come to home to feed." Nice, but Medea might have been a better metaphor here. [Bk Paper] via [Gothamist]

Gawker gets "riled up" about the recent--and not so recent--New York vanishings, and their commenters wonder WTF is going on in this town. [Gawker]

What do you miss about New York? Read all about it. Hundreds commented. Makes you feel less alone. [City Room]

A "poverty tourist" from the UK decides the LES is too unappealing to merit saving. [EVG]

Watch this rather adorable New York story illustrated by comic-book artist Chris Ware. [Tilzy] via [Fimoculous]

Is it time to stop hating the SATC-wannabes, the "Scary Sadshaws" who angle for the position of "queen of New York narcissism"? Nah... [Jezebel]

Who doesn't love New York's potato-peeler guy? You've seen him, you've wondered about him, now here's his story. [Villager]

Brooklyn Horseshoe Crabs

This week, horseshoe crabs mated on Brooklyn's shores. I went to see them awhile ago and wrote about it.

When the Sun and the full Moon aligned with our planet on Sunday night, their combined gravities swelled the ocean’s tides and pulled from the Atlantic depths the lumbering denizens of an ancient world. Every year, in a mating ritual that dates back 300 million years, horseshoe crabs make the journey from their winter residences on the continental shelf to a narrow stretch of Gerritsen Beach near Brooklyn’s salty Marine Park, lazily pushing their way past the shoreline’s litter of beer bottles, plastic shopping bags, and floating chunks of Styrofoam, to dig their nests and lay thousands of pearly, green eggs.

This week, the Urban Park Rangers hosted a crowd of nature-seekers that included local residents as well as hipster kids lured by the promise of something wonderful and strange. “The horseshoe has, like, a million eyes,” one young ranger-in-training explained. The crowd grew fidgety as the rangers talked on about photoreceptors. Kids chased each other up and down the beach, waving flashlights. Adults turned restlessly to cell phones, loudly bemoaning, “I’m standing on a beach waiting for some horseshoe crabs to mate.”


photo: Klaus Schoenwiese at urban calendar

We inched closer to the water. The rangers urged us to stand back, “Let’s step out of their bedroom and give them a little privacy.” The horseshoes clamored together at the surf line, the males clasping onto the backs of the bigger females, hoping to be dragged ashore where the females would dig their nests, lay their eggs, then allow the piggy-backing males to drop their sperm onto the clutch.

An older woman told me how she’d lived in the neighborhood her whole life, and “every year, the horseshoe crabs come to lay their eggs. My brother once brought an egg home in a jelly jar, and would you believe? It turned into a horseshoe crab. A little, bitty one.”

The woman's grandson, dressed in a Superman cape, flashed his flashlight over the water and shouted, “I’m attracting them! They like me!” before pouncing onto a slippery log and falling, up to his knees, into the drink. His grandmother fished him out and told him, “Your mother’s going to kill you.” Then his mother walked over. She calmly lit a cigarette, looked at the boy, and said, “I hope you’re happy. Now you can die of pneumonia.”


photo: Klaus Schoenwiese at urban calendar

Out on the water, a party boat cruised by, strung with lights and blaring music. The revelers didn’t take notice of our small crowd on the sand, nor were they aware of the antediluvian drama that unfolded under the agitated waves their boat made. I thought about the living fossils on the sand, surviving through multiple mass extinctions, and about our city and its own chances of survival.

No matter how our epoch ends—whether in fire, ice, or at our own hands--the horseshoe crabs will outlive us all. Brooklyn will one day be empty of hipsters and stroller mommies and condos. The Wonder Wheel will roll into the sea. Park Slope will be underwater. But as long as there are salty seas and a moon above to move them, the beaches will be crowded with the urgent, quiet couplings of the horseshoe crabs. In this, at least, there is some comfort gained.

*Everyday Chatter

Recently, I wrote about the Georgica condo getting concretized. This week, at their 86th St sales office, Yorkville's landed gentry were feted with a welcome-to-Georgica cocktail party. And no such bash would be complete without violinists, a lot of white people in khaki, and a person-of-color in maid's uniform holding a mop in the background. This looks like a scene from some pre-Civil Rights Hollywood movie.

photo sent in by reed korach

As Bloomberg gets closer and closer to the end of his reign, he has become "short-tempered, scolding, even petulant," and invokes the royal We as he screams, "We need the power!" Holy cow. [Times]

Hands off the Wonder Wheel Bloomie! [Gothamist]

Tonight: Don't miss Luc Sante chatting with filmmaker James Nares at Anthology Film Archives.

Today Grieve checks in on the forlorn pile of wood that was once the Toy Tower. These pics are not for the faint of heart! [EVG]

And what will replace the EV's old eccentric gardens? Neat little orderly gardens sponsored by big corporations. [Curbed]

A "sweet little garden" dies behind Brooklyn scaffolding. [PMFA]

Ah, Fleet Week. I love seeing sailors walking around town--it gives me a wonderful, mid-century, MGM-musical kind of feeling. If you like sailors and long for Meatpacking sleaze, this party might be your kind of thing.

If you're like me and can't make sense of the crazy drama going on over at the Chelsea Hotel, here's a helpful round-up of reading material. [LWL]

A graffitist agrees, Generation O is "what's wrong with America." Among other things. [NYS]

Take another peek inside the just-saved St. Brigid's. [Otway]

We want to go skating: Save the new Coney Island roller rink--give them some money. [Gothamist]

Seems the NYPD thinks the kids at the Pour House are too dumb or spaced out to know how not to be victims. They require the following instructions: "be alert," "don't leave your handbag over the back of your chair, on a stool or on the floor," and "don't leave bags or laptops unattended." Duh.

When Condos Kill

Back in November I made the rather predictable prediction that the low-rise buildings on the southeast corner of 14th and 3rd would soon fall. Curbed confirmed it in December, revealing the big, glass-box monstrosity to come. And this week, the corner has fallen into rubble.

before:


after:

more pics of 14th and 3rd

I don't think it's a coincidence that this corner has come down so soon after the rise of the Toll Brothers' gargantua, 110 Third. It seems that wherever luxury condos sprout, their low-rise neighbors come down within months. Is it condoschmerz, that killer virus, that poisons everything in the vicinity?

Look at what has happened to the block of 6th Avenue between 17th and 18th. Earlier this year, the super-expensive ($1400 a square foot) 100 West 18th condo moved in and quickly added a chainbank-trifecta of Chase, Modell's, and Duane Reade on its first floors.

before:


Today, the rest of the block, except for one holdout frame shop, has shuttered. Two video shops closed, including Red Light District, which moved to 8th and 21st. New York City Bagels is closed and For Rent. And World Famous Pizza, on the corner of 17th, is already gutted and halfway to renovated. That's four small businesses dropped dead. Let's not be surprised when these low-rises come crashing down for yet another glass box.

after:


look who's come to visit the dead pizza corner!

more pics of 17th and 6th

The debate here is not about the inherent value of bagel shops, adult video stores, and tanning salons. It's about the breakneck pace of destruction in this town and the way luxury buildings commit mass murder--not only do they destroy the businesses and homes they immediately replace, they also have a domino effect. Just being in proximity to them is hazardous to the health of the city's diversity and human scale.

So what's next to go? My crystal ball says it will be the southwest corner of 14th and 3rd, where these low buildings look like doomed woodland creatures trembling in the crosshairs of the Toll Brothers' big gun:

before:

St. Brigid's Saved!

Good news! St. Brigid's Church on Ave B has been saved by an anonymous donor. Maybe there is hope in Mudville after all. Rob Hollander, of Save the LES, sent the news and he is lining up interviews and TV cameras will be there today in front of the church. City Room has more info on the deal. I wonder, could the donor be Matt Dillon? That would be kinda hot. Especially if he shouted, "Do it for Johnny!" before writing the check.


Photo by William Alatriste

I've long loved the church because it is the butter-yellow beauty that inspired Frank O'Hara's Hymns of St. Bridget, as in:

"How funny you are today New York
like Ginger Rogers in Swingtime
and St. Bridget's steeple leaning a little to the left..."
--from Steps

(It had steeples until the 1960s.)


photo by Bob Arihood: see his great pics here

And here is another from Frank:

Hymn to St. Bridget’s Steeple
It is to you, bending limp and ridiculous, on Ninth
Street, that I turn. colder than usual after a summer
of lime and smoke. I think you are the first of Ireland’s
saints, or the last, it doesn’t matter you are my dream
of an actual winter with your icicle hat and your arms
which somehow seem square like something I couldn’t see but
guessed at in the last Reinhardt I looked at. It wasn’t
black, it was red, like New York if you’re waste and
contained, or maybe maroon, like my heart which I imagine
inside me, although it looks black to you, St. Bridget,
although it is quiet and in need of filling. Please tell me
what it means “to pump,” as if I were a well
growing upwards and into a steeple which someone who cares
names my own, for always to face the dullest wind,
and you should know, St. Bridget.

Orchard Corset Center

There are some places in the city I simply cannot penetrate. One of these places is the back room of the Orchard Corset Center. Featured in yesterday's Times, complete with an audio slideshow and the good news that the shop is thriving and under no threat of vanishing anytime soon in the shark-infested waters of the endangered Lower East Side, Orchard Corset has hidden depths that I will never see.

For that reason, when I visited the place earlier this year, I brought a somewhat reluctant female partner in crime. I made her try on brassieres while I waited in the plastic "man chair" by the door. Since she boldly went where no man (except proprietor Ralph Bergstein) has gone before, I will let her tell the rest of the story:



The shop was stacked floor to ceiling with faded, battered boxes of brands you never heard of before. The proprietor was a yarmulked man with hair that stood out perpendicular to his head, like a curly shelf, on one side. There were several buxom black ladies shopping. I decided to try on a couple of brassieres. To do this, I went behind a curtain into the back where there were more buxom ladies trying on brassieres. There was no room for me, so I had to go through another curtain, into the storeroom, where I was surrounded by more boxes.



I tried on the bras and the proprietess came to help. She showed me how the nipple should align with the shoulder, placing her fingers on said parts, marking point A and point B. Then she tried to make me a deal, like buy both for some cheap amount you could hardly refuse, except I didn't really like the bras. They made me feel like an alta kocker. They definitely looked like bras for an older lady--but without a fun, 1950s fetish feel.

Even though I myself would never buy these bras, I loved the boxes and the odd brand names and the fact that the saleslady knew more about breasts and bras, and how they fit together, than anyone at Victoria's Secret. The shop seems to cater more to buxom ladies--of which I am not--because the bigger-busted women in the store seemed very relieved and enthusiastic about what they were finding there. It was as if they'd discovered the mother lode of bras.

• Photos from my flickr
• A New View of the LES
  
• Orchard St Ghost Town
• Sammy Gluck
• Endangered LES
  

*Everyday Chatter

Hey Chris Stein, those Blade Runner days you were hoping for? They're coming to LA and no doubt heading east quick as condos turn into giant TV commercials. [Curbed]

Scary term of the day: "Eviction Mill." Read about the diabolical plan to take your home away from you. [Voice]

Bid au revoir to Florent in a big retrospective by Frank Bruni. [Times] via [Eater]

Remember when tents in Tompkins Square Park meant Hooverville? Not anymore. Not at $25o a head. [NMNL]

Every time I see this ad around town, I think it says: "Gentrification so instant, it already happened." Which is kind of exactly how it is:


The Lower East Side is declared endangered by the National Trust who says the Vongerichtification of the place "threatens to erode the fabric of the community and wipe away the collective memory of generations of immigrant families." [Gothamist] and more at [City Room]

Bleecker continues to die as Nusraty Afghan Imports, one of the last old-timers (circa 1980), is likely closing to be turned into another swank clothier. [Racked]

Thank goodness we have preservationists like John Varvatos among us. [EVG]

Another New Yorker falls victim to the unstoppable virus of condoschmerz. P.S. Isn't that plant place the one that sells men with cacti penises in their pants? [Colonnade] via [Curbed]

Check out this lovely visual assortment of anti-yuppie/gentrification graffiti--and the news that councilmember Peter Vallone is putting his energy into getting rid of it. [Curbed]

Where were the Minetta fans reading from Joseph Mitchell when I was there? Sorry to have missed it. [Chowhound]

Starbucks says no more vagina dentata on their coffee cups. [Eater]

Requiem for the Toy Tower

This morning I found some time to go over to the 6B Garden and watch the Tower of Toys be taken apart. It was an oddly hypnotic, elegant sight to see. Eddie Boros' sculpture, I am happy to say, did not go gentle into that good night. It resisted. Plank by plank, rusty nail by rusty nail, it fought back against the chainsaw and the cherry picker. A tangle of wood, wires, ropes, toys, and other junk, the tower, in its undoing, was perhaps just as regal as it was in its making.



The man with the chainsaw pulled on a hobby horse and the animal refused to budge. He tugged a board and was confounded. He placed a few strategic cuts, sending down a shower of golden sawdust. He tugged again. The sculpture resisted. He cut again. Withholding, restrained, the tower surrendered a few bits and pieces, which the man sent plummeting with a crash to the garden below.



Man and sculpture became--and it may be too sentimental to say so--like a pair of dancers, or boxers, moving from strike, to clutch, to separation. He tugged and the tower responded by twisting and swaying. He bumped and the tower shimmied. And like a tease, now and then, the tower relented, giving up a plank of wood, a silver ball, a string of Christmas lights, a bucket of water that tipped and cascaded down the length of the structure, foamy and brown.



Gradually, the tower gave in to the man's patient cajoling and coaxing. That little hobby horse that had at first resisted him, now seemed to leap into the man's hands. A lover to the end, he did not drop the horse. He lowered his cherry picker to the ground and gently, gently placed the toy upon a green bed of flowers.

Dare I say it? The tower has gone out the way it came in--with poetry and defiance and a fair share of beauty.

*Everyday Chatter

The bashing of Park Slope has reached critical mass. God, I miss Dyke Slope. [Gawker]

This article by Lynn Harris is a must-read: "our feelings about Park Slope are linked to our feelings about our entire city: our overpriced, chain-store city run by bankers, socialites and, it seems, mommies. The artists are fleeing and your friends, it seems, have become Park Slope pod people. (And they’re coming for you, too.) It’s starting to feel as if there’s nowhere left to hide." [Times] More background: [OTBKB]

A fascinating timeline of the de-evolution of the Meatpacking District. The tipping point seems to be 1999, a year prior to Carrie's eating of the fateful cupcake and coinciding with the opening of McNally's Pastis. [Shecky's]

By now, everyone knows Florent is dead in the water. But here's the joint's official "au revoir" signage, spelling out a clever FOR RENT (let Ralph Lauren pay the $70,000 a month):

photo: micawave

“Flipping burgers, or folding shirts at a clothing store simply are not appealing to today’s technology addicted, career-oriented teen" -- nope, instead, go-getter teens are going after your job this summer. Hey, they need it for their resume. Resume? I didn't even think about a resume until I was in my 20s. [CNBC]

Back to that waiting in lines thing, I just found this article in the Sun with a choice quote from psychologist, Robert Leahy: "Today people are very insecure about getting the right thing, and the easiest way to make a decision is to seek out what everyone else is buying. If they didn't feel like they had to fit in, and they just looked at what they value, they might make different decisions."

Ancient "Die Yuppie Scum" cry of protest returns to LES. [Curbed]

“Sex and the City, the former HBO hit about four single women devoted to designer shoes and other forms of self-gratification, is about to be released as a feature film. But isn’t the film out of sync with the spirit of New York at a time when people are scaling back?" [Times]

Toy Tower Falls Today

My tipster tells me the Parks Department is in the 6B Garden right now and is dismantling Eddie Boros' Tower of Toys today until 2:00. They will continue tomorrow morning at 8:00 until it's finished.



The big orange cherry picker is picking away, dumping a piece of East Village history into the toy-gathering Dumpster of Death. Sob.

Just in: Curbed has lots of gruesome pics and reports the workers are letting tower-lovers walk away with souvenirs. Get 'em while they last!

As an aside, last week NY Mag offered an IM of mixed emotions about the tower. And may I say to Cristal that "it made me think of RENT" is not a good reason to love the Toy Tower. "Eek! Shit-covered toys hanging from the sky," however, is a pretty good reason.

• Tower Farewell
• Toy Tower Update
• Tower of Toys
  

*Everyday Chatter

11th and 2nd: I went to this oft-frequented bodega this weekend to find it suddenly eaten by its neighbor, Carerra wine bar. Another casualty in the war on East Village bodegas. I guess they're keeping the awning for irony--and to confuse people like myself who go looking for a Coke to sneak into a movie at Village East:


Just as Woody returns to film in the East Village, could the 2nd Ave Deli also be coming back? [Eater]

NYU backs off from total demolition of the Provincetown Playhouse. This is the second reprieve they've recently granted (Met Foods seems safe, too). I don't trust them. What if they're saving up brownie points for something really heinous? [Times]

A couple with a high-gloss crash/party pad, a glass box containing glass boxes decorated with 11 televisions and 0 books, say: "We don’t need to have books out. We know that we know how to read." I guess they don't know that they know how to watch TV? [NYMag]

This weekend, the annual Ukrainian festival carried on like a trooper in the dark shadow of a giant, scary crane and Cooper Union's ever-rising beast, to which they supposedly surrendered amicably:


Chinatown and the Lower East Side are under siege and the residents are screaming back. [Villager]

A 101-year-old metalworking shop leaves Soho to make room for yet another condo. [Times] And here's the movie version: [City Room]

May 22: Save Coney Island and say NO WAY to luxury high-rises and mega-malls as Thor's BS "Summer of Hope" kicks off. [GL] via [Curbed]

Christians are upset over "Slutbucks" new old logo. Told ya it was a big pagan vagina. [HuffPo]

12th & A Fills Out

For about the past year, the four corners of 12th and A have sat empty. (Click here for more info and photos.) The former small businesses that occupied the spots were mostly pushed out by rising rents--I believe these were all part of the big, bad East Village Portfolio. And, I imagine, the landlord has been keeping them vacant as they held out for something hot to come along. Well, it looks like they may have finally given up, as a few new places have moved in and none of them look hot.

Dave's Electric Motors & Pumps is now a gypsy fortune-teller joint (those bellydancers just happened to be hanging out there after the Dance Parade):



The former sites of Gino the Royal Tailor and a copy shop have been combined for Furry Land Pet Supplies:



And the southeast corner (formerly the Cock) looks like it's going to be a restaurant with a kind of UGLY WTF Russian mob-styled exterior decor that has already been commented on by a critical graffiti artist who might also have been expecting something a little more Meatpacky:



Keep in mind, there is still more to rent. Next to the gypsy joint, where the Metropolitan funeral home used to be, there is a rather well-fortified blue plywood fence that's airtight, impossible to see through, and I suspect that means something top-secret fancy is going in there, but overall, I'm quite pleased to report that these corners have remained cozily crapalicious. And that just might mean that Westbrook, in a deal that booted several residents from their business and homes, lost out on their big buy.

• East Village Portfolio
• Corners of 12th and A
• More pics of the corners on my flickr
  

How the Cupcake Crumbled

Made giddy by the recent deluge of SATC-spanking media coverage (see end of story for links), and in the interest of further dragging out the saga of how SATC killed NYC, let's trace it back--not as far back this time as Bushnell and Star's fateful meeting at Bowery Bar, we've already covered that. No, let's go back to a seemingly more harmless moment in the year 2000, to a few seconds frosted in pink.

The Villager points the way, reflecting, "After Sarah Jessica Parker ate a creamy retro cupcake on Sex and the City at a beloved local landmark, The Magnolia Bakery, the tour buses began circling. The lines outside the tiny bakery swelled into queues stretching around the corner. Soon, upscale clothing retailer Marc Jacobs, salivating over the youthful crowds, rented a shop right across the street."


don't do it! stop!

And here's our smoking gun: “Our goal was to take advantage of the huge concentration of young people who flooded into the area, especially with the ‘Sex and the City’ show,” said Debbie Lee, a Marc Jacobs assistant manager.


oh no, you didn't! watch the cataclysmic catalyst here

The way a butterfly's wings can theoretically whip up a tornado, Carrie Bradshaw's bite of a cupcake set an avalanche in motion. That mouthful of buttery sweetness begat tour buses, which begat trendy lines, which begat Marc Jacobs. And what did Marc Jacobs beget?

Wrote the Observer, "Marc Jacobs didn’t invent the West Village, but his five stores there have made it into a precious, pricey, overpopulated, well-corduroyed, bubble-skirted dreamland." Time Out says this SATC effect created the "douchification of the Meatpacking District and the West Village," with "Lower East-Packing and Chinatown... neck-and-neck for the next douchey makeover," thanks to inclusion in the SATC movie.


the only bakery where cupcakes require bouncers for protection

From here, we can follow the cupcake crumb trail west, where toxic Bleecker connects to Hudson, which becomes 9th and leads straight into the luxury Meatpacking Mall. To the east, Bleecker infects Bowery and gives birth to the Cooper Sq Hotel, Varvatos, etc., which will in turn beget more of the same. These Bleecker offshoots stretch ever north and south, and even cross the rivers. You can see how quickly the light breeze from those butterfly's wings has built into a devastating storm--one that the media and the city has begun to turn against.

Just for fun, imagine an alternate universe in which Carrie Bradshaw opted not to swallow that cupcake. What if, instead, she spat it onto the sidewalk and said, "These cupcakes are horrible"? On the filmreel of your mind, watch the city rewind back to its old self--glass towers fall and fallen brick lowrises rise again, the sidewalks clear of heartless crowds, lost New Yorkers return to homes and shops they were evicted from...oh, what a fantasy that would be.



She's an easy target, but for the record, I don't think it's all Sarah Jessica Parker's fault. She has her part, but an actor plays a character co-created by writers, producers, directors. Let's not forget the others who brought SATC to power, including Darren Star and Candace Bushnell. And, clearly, the yunnies were already in the audience, primed and hungry to receive SATC's messages. In a time and place where image is king (or queen), television dictates behavior. It won't make us into murderers, but it can boost existing cultural trends that balloon into major changes.

In an essay on television and gentrification, one writer takes it to the next level, writing, "urban leaders have internalized these televisual images of the urban good life. When they think of 'urban vitality,' they envision the city as a playground of upscale consumption and leisure. And, in doing so, they have increasingly committed themselves to policies of gentrification and displacement."

And so the cupcake trail leads straight to Bloomberg and Burden. Wipe those crumbs from your lips, Carrie and the gang, you've got a lot of cleaning up to do.



A chain of blame:

• My Plea to SJP
• How SATC Killed NYC

• The Post rolls out a list of crimes, saying, "Carrie Bradshaw, we're holding you responsible for the following developments, which you and your cohorts unleashed upon an unsuspecting city."
• Time Out features an anti-SATC cover and a "haters package" for a "Carrie-free" New York.
• The Daily Mail (and last night's CBS News 2) declares the Big Apple backlash begun.
  
• AMNY wonders, "is it the show's fault that your corner diner was knocked down for a condo and places like Third Avenue in Murray Hill are overrun with Samantha clones?"
• A former Villager details the ruination of her neighborhood, complete with: bitchy cupcake ladies! rats! desperate singles!

Neurotics vs. Narcissists

Smackdown! It's the neurotics vs. the narcissists as two of my favorite celebs, Woody Allen and Larry David, take over the East Village and Lower East Side for Allen's new movie.


See lots more photos by Lorcan Otway

They're at Cafe Mogador. They're at Yonah Schimmel's. They're everywhere! But can this follicly challenged dynamic duo from old-school New York take back the city for the rest of us neurotics?

Or will we lose it forever to the always-a-good-hair-day narcissists who, with the Sex and the City movie juggernaut on their side, aim to make "Lower East-Packing" the site of their "next douchey makeover"?

The tide might be turning as psychoanalysis gets a rennaissance and more and more New Yorkers complain about the deleterious effects of too much SATC.

Go Woody! Go Larry! Yay team!

(And before anybody helpfully informs me that Woody and Larry, like all celebs, are narcissistic, let me say that everybody's narcissistic to some degree--it's good to have healthy narcissism. Again, I am talking about the personality disorder, which is different. For more info, see Yunnies.)

• See Time Out's guide to hating Sex and the City on more douchification: "With the ladies of SATC came careening tour buses, gaggles of fratboys puking outside Hogs & Heifers and rows of women linked at the elbows mowing down pedestrians."

• Suburbanization and Anti-Semitism
• Plea to SJP
  

Last Night at Minetta's

Last night at the Minetta Tavern was the last night of the Minetta Tavern. As far as I'm concerned, it will perish in the Vongerichtifying hands of Keith McNally. Where once was Joe Gould squawking like a seagull, there shall be Zero Girls and Guys, just squawking.



When the owner thought they would close on May Day, April 30 was their official farewell celebration. I missed that and then the bar's closing kept getting put off. But last night was it. McNally's going to close it until October for renovations and change the longtime Italian menu to French bistro.

I'm sure Matthew Broderick will miss the food. He said in the Post, "There's something really cool about eating in a place like this in the city that has [such an] unusual past. I also love the great Italian food. My favorite dish is the linguini with clams." (Don't get me started on the SJP/SATC/Pastis/McNally chain of convolutions, but there it is.)


my last meal: Tortellaci Minetta

For my last night at Minetta's, I had hoped to find some old regulars, storytellers, characters. But there was no such crowd. No fanfare and no sense of finality, other than the playlist on the sound system, which included a perhaps intentional array of farewell and doomsday songs: Seems Like Old Times, Sentimental Journey, Yesterday, and (maybe a portent of what's to come) Ill Wind, with Ella singing, "Go ill wind, go away. Skies are oh so gray around my neighborhood, and that's no good."



There were no old Minetta stories told around the bar, but one person recalled meeting McNally on a recent visit to his newest trophy: "He looks good, but he's arrogant. He didn't say hello or goodbye. All he's interested in around here is making everything fancy." Let's hope he doesn't touch the murals. Stained sepia by tobacco smoke, they show the Village that was, filled with images of the vanished and the vanishing.


provincetown playhouse: vanishing

• Minetta May Day
• Minetta pics on my flickr
  

*Everyday Chatter

That building that houses those threatened mom-and-pops on 9th Ave? Call me paranoid, but it is so being gutted and refurbished, apartment by apartment. Can anyone say evictions? This has been the scene outside its back alley, where some lucky new tenants are getting fresh-spanking dishwashers, ranges, and toilets:




Yves is giving its last remaining units the hard sell with this big billboard: "extraordinary finishes!" "forward thinking architecture!" "valcucine kitchens!" Valcucine? Sounds like a herpes medication:


Speaking of herpes, Cooper Square Hotel gets a new nickname: The Dildo of Darkness. [EVG]

Last night's CB4 meeting heard Barroco Cafe's request for a liquor license--did anyone go? How's my Emerman prediction holding up? Either way, the place is coming along fast and fancy.

Real World to ruin Brooklyn. [Gothamist]

Bob catches an old EV tradition--plugging your trash TV into the lamppost and stealing a little entertainment from Con Ed. Nice. [NMNL]

Wish I was at the Chelsea to see this smackdown--there were stun guns! [NYO]

And I wish I was at this splendid sidewalk Sinatra tribute right now! [NYShitty]

I was just going past this way-East 14th Street R&S Strauss place thinking, I gotta check that out--too late: It's on the market for $13 million. Hello MePa East. [Curbed]

It's official: Marc Jacobs has turned the Village into "a precious, pricey, overpopulated, well-corduroyed, bubble-skirted dreamland." [NYO] via [Racked]

The interior gutting of landmark Stuyvesant Polyclinic turned rock-and-roll mansion of death continues at breakneck pace, after the owner got spanked for bolting signs to the exterior:

Meatpacking Vernacular

A new building is rising in the Meatpacking District, stretching across the block from 410 West 13th to 15 Little West 12th, where now a big dirt hole sits and waits.



They tried to make it bigger, but luckily that didn't fly in the Historic District. Approved, somewhat begrudgingly, by the HDC, it's being sold as an "incredible big-box opportunity." Just perfect for a flagship. What do you think? Blue and Cream?



The architects' renderings show the building filled with high-end retail, people in black, shiny people with handfuls of shopping bags, and always some sort of Jaguar or Porsche parked outside. They note that the building has been "designed to echo and honor the neighborhood's gritty past, harmonizing with the adjacent industrial vernacular."

I find something troubling about that language, the way "grit" has been co-opted for use as a selling point. A past once accessible to many gets sanitized and turned into luxury style for the very few. It's what Varvatos has done to CBGB. It's a Disney idea pumped up with money steroids. "It looks real, but it isn't," they say, "It's better than real." Where's Baudrillard when you need him?

As for what's left of the "vernacular," a ragged tooth stands amid the vanishings, shivering with fear, knowing it only has so much time before it, too, is pulled. Trust me, in a few years, there will nothing original in the Meatpacking District, all of it a purified reenactment of what used to be.

On Hats & Hatters

A couple of months ago, JJ Hat Center was featured in the Times, complete with a beautiful slideshow of photos. I don't go into JJ often, mostly because I can't afford their hats and trying them on is just a performance with no likelihood of becoming a reality. If I'm in the market for a porkpie or a straw fedora, I'll probably head to Arnold Hatters and deal with brothers Mark and Peter, whose prices are lower. But a trip to JJ Hat Center, just to window shop, is worth it all the same.



In business since 1911, JJ was forced out of a previous location and moved into its current spot, which happens to have been IBM's first New York showroom. It's a gorgeous place, with decorated plasterwork on the walls, and looks like it was made for hats.

They have a few ancient hat-related machines in the shop that still work. One of them, which I found particularly fascinating, is this 70-year-old embossing machine that stamps your initials in gold along the inner band of your hat.





The machine was made by the Roberts Cushman Co. sometime in the 1930s. They hold patents for several embossing machines--this is just one of them, but I add it here because I like the elegance of the old diagram:



Inspired by the hat-sprucing machines, I went searching for a man known as Mr. Horace who ran the Peter & Irving workshop on 38th Street, upstairs in one of the old Garment District buildings where wholesalers sell things like feathers, trimmings, and buttons.

Born in Mississippi in 1928, Horace Weeks came to New York City in 1948 and began working at Peter & Irving, in business since 1935. He became the owner in the 1970s and continued designing, making, and restoring hats in the shop.


photo from RuthShopsNY

I visited Mr. Horace once, maybe five years ago, to see about blocking my old fedora. I remember stepping into a dusty room piled high with wooden hat blocks and straw hats in sherbet shades of pink and lavender and pistachio, the fancy kind worn by Harlem's church ladies on Sundays.

Mr. Horace was standing across the dark workshop in the half-light of an open window overlooking an airshaft. It was summer, a fan was turning, and he wore a sweaty undershirt as he toiled over a heavy black machine. I watched him work for a minute, wanting to talk to him, but he seemed busy and, intimidated, I left without a word.

I have always wanted to go back. But when I went to find him this week, he had vanished. If anybody knows where he went, please let me know. I need him to restore the shape of my hat.

*Everyday Chatter

Last night was the 6B Garden goodbye party for Eddie Boros' Tower of Toys. People came bearing cameras--at least 100 showed--and the press is all over it. The story made it to 1010 WINS (the first thing I heard yesterday morning when my clock radio went off), WNYC was there, and The Times did a story on this "sad, dilapidated memorial to a time gone by.” Bob Arihood has pics and so does Lorcan Otway. And here's a link to mine.


While karaokers were singing "Tiny Dancer" a man was shot this weekend at Sing Sing on 6th and A. (He's OK.) If you think this means the EV is going back to its wild west ways, let me say it again: "Tiny Dancer." [Grieve]

Speaking of the old EV, visit 2nd and B back in the day. [FlamingP]

Stroller nazis of Park Slope cut the line and demand on-the-spot flat fixes. [Curbed]

Ready to drop $50,000 for a Circle Line cruise? This "Gold Plate" special has everything a multimillionaire could want--almost. Why no gold-shit pills? [Gothamist]

As the EV is turned into a frat house block by block, the frat-boyification knows no bounds--here's a young guy who works a lot, has a lot of space in his apartment, and therefore requires a girl roomie to walk around in her underpants. [E in NY]

Time Out names the Avalon Chrystie fishbowl as one of the best places in the city to watch people having sex. Maybe those glass condos are good for something:

Pre-Glasnost NY

It never ceases to amaze me what people will stand in line for in this city. For example, groceries at Trader Joe's, where one shopper calls it a "pre-glasnost Soviet grocery store." People complain about the line, but I think they like it. In fact, I think the line is the whole point.

It seems some people really enjoy being in certain lines. Lines are hot. The line outside the Magnolia cupcake bakery is hot. And the recently opened Grom gelato store this weekend had people standing out on the street to get, um, gelato in 50-degree weather. So the Grom line must also be hot.



But the hottest line to be in has got to be Shake Shack's, where people wait forever (like hours) to get burgers and fries and say "totally worth it." Why do they do this? Maybe they think, "Life has to be spent somehow, and since I don't create anything and I don't enjoy being alone, I might as well kill some of my lifetime waiting in a line with other like-minded folks."

People like being pressed up against each other. Have you ever noticed how, though there are two down escalators exiting the Union Square Regal megaplex, every single person flooding out of a movie crams onto the same escalator and nobody but nobody goes down the empty one?



Since waiting in line is fun and cute, the Shake Shack line comes with adorable posters instructing people waiting to do Shack-cercises. I didn't see anybody actually doing them, though. And if you ever feel lonely for the Shake Shack line, you can always watch it from home or work on the SS webcam.



Celebrating this most weirdly popular and possibly longest line in town, Shake Shack sells a t-shirt featuring the line itself. As if the line were an attraction. Which, let's admit, it is. And instead of loving NY, the t-shirt says, "I Shake-Shack NY."

Which I guess is the goal of every chain--to turn itself into a verb and then "do it" to the city. Shake Shack is spreading rapidly, heading to 77th and Columbus next, then possibly Citi Field. Let's hope Danny Meyer doesn't Shake Shack Union Square, as the Bloombergians move to privatize the already human-glutted park.



Maybe what the mom-and-pops need are lines. Here's an idea for some ambitious group of performance artists: Dress up like Sex & the City girls (blonde, pink, screeching like banshees into cell phones) and make lines outside of the most unfashionable places. Do it outside Met Foods. Do it at the Sweet Banana Candy Store. Do it at the Donut Pub. Do it at Show World.

P.S. Already, they are clamoring to get in line for Ikea, as if they've never been to the one in Jersey. Ikea has had to issue a warning to potential liner-uppers, says City Room, "Customers will not be allowed to line up outside the new Ikea in Red Hook, Brooklyn, until 48 hours before the grand opening." Jesus H. Christ, are people really, really going to camp out in Red Hook for two days just to buy some particleboard home furnishings?

A Blondie on the Bowery

The Best of Blondie (on 8-track) was the first album I ever picked out and bought for myself; at 12 years old, the most thrillingly sexy song in my pubescent world was “Rapture.” So it was a special treat recently to find myself talking with Blondie co-founder and guitarist Chris Stein about the Bowery, CBGB, NYU, and the coming of Blade Runner.

I asked him what he thinks about Varvatos moving into CBGB and he replied, “Ah, what the fuck. What are you gonna complain about that for? The issue is much bigger. The Lower East Side, the city--it's all dead. I’m just waiting for economic collapse. It’s gonna be full-on Blade Runner.”

While the CBGB-to-Varvatos shift doesn't particularly trouble him, he said, “I’m not okay with what happened to the whole city. It’s a drag. Look at the fucking Fillmore, it’s a fucking bank. NYU, man. I protested when they tore down Edgar Allen Poe’s house. Edgar Allen Poe! You’d think any university would be thrilled to have that on their campus. NYU is fucking demented.”

"Everybody who helped add to the cachet of the city can’t live there anymore. The biggest shame is that everybody’s gotta have a job to live in the city now. There’s no time to make art. How can you keep your credibility if you have some stupid job you hate and still be a radical? I never had a job ever. I painted a bathroom once and that was it. I was in the band for 30 years.”


photo: Roberta Bayley

In the 1970s Chris lived on the Bowery, over a liquor store and across from what is now, as he puts it, “that museum thing.” He started going to hear music at CBGB before he met Debbie Harry, back in the summer before CB’s opened in 1973, maybe in 1972, when the place was still Hilly’s on the Bowery. There he saw Eric Emerson, Warhol star and member of The Magic Tramps. By the mid-70s he was a CBGB regular, playing with Harry. I asked him what he misses most about the old Bowery.

“Dead bodies and drugs!” he answered without hesitation, “I miss having to watch your back—it keeps you in a heightened state.”

Chris lives in a different heightened state these days, upstate with his wife and kids. But he still returns to his place in the East Village. While he enjoys wandering around the city now, he finds it’s “getting more and more Walt Disney.” And the people on the streets just aren’t the same. “Everyone’s got a driven aggressiveness, all these young people with an ‘I’m gonna get somewhere’ attitude. Everybody’s money conscious, materialistic."


photo: Marcia Resnick

He talked about what he calls the “everyone is hip syndrome,” saying, “There are so many people in the city who exude this false hipness that’s mostly based on what they are wearing or their hairdo or tattoos--a lot of just plain old straight people who are 'styled.’ The reason that the beats and maybe the punks could qualify for a less transient hipness is that they were a fucking minority."

So what's the solution to all this rampant false hipness and aggressive consumerism?

"We need a recession, it’s good for the arts. Man, I’d like it to be like Blade Runner, everything on the verge of collapse.” And the Blade Runner days will come, Chris says, when China and other foreign markets rise to economic power and take over the city. But on the other hand, “Like, 50% of the world has never made a phone call.”

Cue the opening riff of “Call Me” as Chris hustles off the phone to chase his little girls outside into the sunshine of a beautiful day far, far away from the vanishing New York.


CBGB mural, photo by Chris Stein: "There was a great mural on the wall of all these bums. The bums were actual guys. Hilly could tell you their names. It was a very cool, very weird mural. Did Varvatos keep it?"

• Bowery Flops
• Remains of CBGB's
• Another Bowery Tower

*Everyday Chatter

Mike Albo visits the Varvatos store on Bowery, finds some things "amazing" and some "downright offensive," and says, "now we live in a city of aspirations and replicated cool. N.Y.U. students come in and imagine how great they will look when they get their six-figure jobs, and six-figure-salary guys come in to buy clothes so they can look as if they moshed." [NYT]

From avant-garde to credit cards, where once was theater on the Bowery, there now is high-end shopping. [Racked]

Now the birds are imitating cell-phone rings. When will it end? [NYO]

Somebody please tell me where I can get my very own "I Miss NY" t-shirt! [Gothamist]

"Gay Chelsea's ground zero" Food Bar is closed. Why? Signs plastered in the windows today say "It is all about the R-E-N-T." The closure has inspired funereal candlelit memorials and a "gay Italian entrepreneur" (according to a Towleroad commenter) flying in with a suitcase full of Euros to save the joint:




Yes, NY Mag, those models on Stuyvesant Town's new marketing site are indeed hateful. And so is the copy: Downtown is their town and they don't have to commute to their nightlife in the EV--where they come to my block to scream all night and puke on my doorstep. [Daily Intel]

And a dorm is born in the EV for yunnie kids who want to party til they puke in their fishbowl apartments--wait, is that a plastic-mattressed communal bed on the roof? [Curbed]

More scoop on the Stuyvesant Polyclinic and its defacement by developers--those "Buy This Mansion" signs were "in gross violation of the Landmarks Law." The interior is being demolished at this moment. [Villager]

Bowling sounds its death rattle as it vanishes, lane by lane, from the new New York. [Gothamist]

Pics of LES Jewels flashing his penis on Avenue A give me hope for the city yet. (Not so work safe.) [NMNL]

Lichtenstein's Signs

I've been worried about these old signs at 55 Delancey. Now, BoweryBoogie, a member of the Vanishing New York flickr group, alerts us that they've vanished.





That lovely gold lettering (WOOLENS! TAILORS' TRIMMINGS!) has been scraped from the windows and washed away. And Lichtenstein's sign, along with Singer Woolens, has been covered with black paint.


photo: BoweryBoogie

55 Delancey, it turns out, has a rather sordid recent history, according to Chinatown advocacy group CAAAV, which reports that when this and another building were bought in 2001, the new landlords "evicted almost half of the original tenants" and earned themselves "more than 500 HPD (Department of Housing Preservation and Development) violations." CAAAV reports in a follow up that the tenants got together to fight the new landlord and won. (More at Metro.)

Apparently, Lichtenstein & Co. had already moved on--up to 95 Delancey, where you can still find them. I went in last fall just to check out the experience of being in a tailor supply shop.



I bought a pea-coat button and an ancient set of Clik-Tite snap fasteners that look like they probably came over from the old Lichtenstein's (love that packaging design). Wish the signage had come too.

*Everyday Chatter

VNY reader BaHa offers a taste of Economy Candy, one of the last old holdouts of the LES. [ELE]

Woody's filming in NYC again after a long hiatus from our deadened city. He said, "There are certain areas that have not been encroached upon too much... But once they put up those big new buildings, it looks the same as Houston." That's Houston, Texas, not Houston Street. Oh, is there a difference? [Urbanite]

This stuff about Veniero's (temporary!) closure--where in NYC are there not mouse droppings? [Eater]

A little flashback to 2001: Remember the "Fight Back NY!" campaign that brainwashed people into believing the way to fight terrorism was to "Go Shop!" and "Spend Money!"? People listened. And here we are.


Gotta love this Oniony Stuy-Town satire. [StuyTown] via [Curbed]

Whatever you do, do not sit on any wooden subway benches! [NYShitty]

May 22: Join the save Coney Island freak show/protest. [Gothamist]

I had no idea that catered, sit-down dinners were held in condo showrooms, but last night at One Jackson Square's sales office a table full of swells enjoyed an elegant meal surrounded by video screens heralding serious undulation while chefs and waitstaff swirled about:


The graffiti additions to this ad make a pic too good to ignore, concealing as it does an old Kelvinator ghost sign. Looks like someone's a little nipplephobic:

Toy Tower Update

I got more background info about the Tower of Toys from my tipster, who says, “The garden contacted The Folk Arts Museum and others in hopes that they could take Eddie Boros’ carvings and maybe maintain the sculpture, but while they showed interest, nobody could do it. Eddie himself said he didn't care what happened to the sculpture after he was gone. He said he didn't care if it was torn down.”

Due to risk of collapse, the garden voted to let The Parks Department take the sculpture. There’s a chance they will let 10 feet of it remain (it’s 5 stories tall now). They can send a cherry-picker at any time and don't need to notify the garden. Hopefully, it will stand until the celebration this Sunday, so people can say goodbye.

“We loved Eddie,” my tipster says, “and his sculpture was what he did, but it becomes like a long tenure of graffiti--eventually someone covers even the best of what you did and it's gone.” Somehow, that does make me feel a little better.


painting of Eddie in Sophie's Bar

To buy a DVD of a documentary film about Eddie Boros, email One Gun Press at sallysonegun(at)gmail(dot)com.

A Plea to SJP

At this point, I’ve hammered the whole How Sex & the City Killed NYC thing about a million times and now, with the movie coming out, journalists are starting to needle the SATC cast on this issue. AMNY's story inspired some fantastic comments (especially #11). And a VNY commenter sent in a link to a New York Magazine interview with Sarah Jessica Parker. It’s a long article, and she says a lot of good things, so I’ve pulled out all the relevant stuff.

In it SJP remembers a different city, back in her Square Pegs days, when I thought she was really cool, back when she was, according to writer Emily Nussbaum, “a very New York type: the ethnic girl nerd with crazy hair, a schnoz, big eighties glasses.” Sadly, that’s the type we’re losing to the ranks of Zero Girls, the girls who flock here to be mini-SJPs. Now we're surrounded by Muffy Teppermans and Jennifer DiNuccios.



She bemoans the vanishing New York, especially Greenwich Village. She and husband Matthew Broderick “keep a running count of these changes, a mutual mourning for the transformation of their neighborhood into a luxe, tree-lined shopping mall. She knows this sounds absurd coming from her, that people blame Sex and the City for the ruination of the West Village; even Broderick says, ‘That’s your fault!’ when he sees a thong poking up from low-slung jeans, and her close friend John Benjamin Hickey, an actor, longs for the days before ‘those girls on buses.’ Parker clarifies that she doesn’t want to sound like Madonna bemoaning what’s happened to New York: It’s not that there’s no ‘creative energy’ in the air, it’s simply been priced out of this particular borough.”

Maybe SJP should read this blog.

“’You know, when I arrived in the city in 1976, New York was financially a wreck,’ she remembers. ‘But to me it’s the New York that Matthew and I literally try to find every day of our lives. It was the best place in the world. It was literature. It promised everything… there’s just so much money now, and the city is so affluent, and all the colors, all the shops, the look of a street from block to block is just terribly absent of distinguishing coffee shops, bodegas. All of that stuff that made it possible to live in New York is gone.’”

On Bleecker, she worries about "the Marc Jacobs effect" and that "a friend who owns a framing shop will get priced out.” She says, “I feel cheapened... like I’m bringing dirt [paparazzi], like I’m bad for the neighborhood.”


screenshot from AMNY

But there is something you can do, Sarah! Embrace your inner nerd! Replace Carrie Bradshaw with good old Patty Greene. How about a Square Pegs reunion movie? How about some activist work? Speak out for the preservation of the mom-and-pop shops you mourn for. Do some free or low-cost advertising work for small businesses. Mr. Big, who also misses the old NYC, can join you. You have the power, Sarah. You can help save what's left of New York from the destructive hordes who emulate the character you brought to life. It’s not yet too late. Ask yourself, what would Patty do?

If you need ideas, drop me a line and I'll be happy to chat with you. In the meantime, here are a few places to get you started:

• 9th Avenue
• Met Foods
• Provincetown Playhouse
• 13th Street Rep
• Coney Island (like Ruby's and Gregory & Paul's)
  

Tower of Toys

VANISHING

Awful news just came in from a tipster who is affiliated with the community garden at 6th St. and Ave B: Eddie Boros' famous Tower of Toys is coming down. Here's the official announcement from the garden's executive committee:


photo by Goggla

"Recently the NYC Parks Department has determined that the Tower of Toys is unsafe and has ordered it be removed. Parks Department will begin dismantling it soon. As the tower's future is now very uncertain, the 6 & B Garden would like to invite all admirers of the tower and its creator, Eddie Boros, who passed away a year ago, to spend an evening in the garden with each other and celebrate this landmark of the East Village."


photo by Gammablog

How ironic that this should be done at the time of LES street-artist Keith Haring's 50th birthday. This makes me sick to my stomach. I guess the new residents of the EV don't like it in their view. Before it's gone, come to An Informal Celebration of the Tower of Toys, Sunday, May 11, 7pm - 9pm at the 6th Street & Avenue B Community Garden.

P.S. You can get a DVD about Eddie Boros and his artistic process by contacting Sally at One Gun Press.

P.P.S. The fact that Amanda Burden supports the rezoning of the EV/LES makes me deeply suspicious and deeply frightened for my future in the neighborhood. What will be the side effects of this move?

Weird Way West

Let's take a trip up the far west side of Greenwich Village, during which we will encounter a new world, a post-Apocalyptic vision of glass towers, and end up at Palazzo Chupi, face-to-face with Schnabel himself.

At 685 Washington Street, plywood plastered with fembot queens conceals a gutted lot waiting for another tower of power to grow from the ruins of the old Village.



We turn down once-quaint, cobblestoned Charles Lane, cast into shadow by Richard Meier's ice-towers, soon to be joined by 166 Perry Street, rising now to its future glassy undulation. Here, the world feels sterile and bare. Sheets of slate shift unsteadily underfoot like ice floes. Hudson Blue contributes its sliver to the chilly atmosphere.



We keep walking up West. A banner for "Something Super" appears, but as we move closer it becomes "Something Superior." We are meant to feel diminished. The Superior Ink factory is vanished, against the protests of preservationists. A hulking tower-townhouse combination, the new Franken-condo is putting on its prefabricated brick face.





On the opposite corner, tiny green 399 West 12th crumbles under a questionable demolition. Built in 1880, bought years ago by Bill Gottlieb, it is 1 in 150 buildings he acquired and left intact and untouched. Gottlieb and his immediate heir now deceased, the fate of these 150 remains uncertain. But with nearly $1 billion in the portfolio, the vultures are descending to gobble them up.



Looming over the green demolition, 385 West 12th has risen and awaits its metal skin. They're packing them in like sardines out here. One stands out above the rest. We turn back to 11th, following the hot-pink palazzo in the sky. Good grief, it's Chupi!

It isn't glass. It isn't metal. It does not undulate. Unsure of how to feel, we stand actually admiring the artistry, right down to the faux make-it-look-real "no parking" signs, when what to our wondering eyes should appear? Julian Schnabel, Mr. Chupi, on his way to the Tribeca Film Festival where his Lou Reed film, Berlin, is premiering.



He waits for his car. Nearby, a woman appears with cellphone, also waiting for a car. She tells her phone, "You're giving me my life lesson in carpets. Whatever happens, I need them to be pristine." Schnabel stands silent, shaggy, leonine in the middle of the street, not once betraying the fact that, hidden under his long cashmere coat and colorful scarf, he is sporting purple pajamas.

• More photos on my flickr

*Everyday Chatter

Though I can't fathom why I never read him before, I just discovered Jim Knipfel. A recent Slackjaw of his gave me the chills--he seems to be reading my mind and telegraphing my thoughts--so read his so-crazy-it's-sane take on the Park Slope stroller madness. [Slackjaw]

As NYU re-brands itself as a benevolent neighbor, here's an old quote from the president: "My answer to people who want to cap or severely restrict the capacity of NYU or Columbia is... Maybe you should move to Sioux City..." [Observer]

Aristo-brat, nepotista, celebu-spawn--Radar coins some great new terms for the growing population of rich kids who are taking over the world. [Radar]

And, as a too-often rejected writer, it really irks me to see the children of the "publishing elite" get handed multi-book, mega-bucks deals for writing that is (in the words of reviewers) cartoonish, awkward, flat, and flailing. [Radar]

The SATC girls say it's not their fault that New York has been changed "into a real-life set for the show, with gaggles of cosmo-swigging young women chasing the lifestyle it depicts." I beg to differ. [AMNY]


With all their over-the-top amenities, the new condos make people feel angry and robbed, even when they don't really want those amenities. Here's a sad statement: "Once our choice set has been expanded to include things that we never dreamed of that are gloriously better than what we have, it’s very tough for us to be content with the things that used to give us pleasure." [Times]

As plans for killing Coney turn away from luxury housing, they swing toward mall-trashy Times Square. Again, we're given two choices for the city: High-end luxury or middle-American garbage. It's no choice at all. [Brownstoner]

Disappearing affordable supermarkets--next step in The Big Plan to oust NYC's poor, elderly, and disabled? [Times]

Feeling depressed now? Take a ride on the Third Avenue El in this fabulous old film. [youtube]

Saving 9th Avenue

On Saturday, an angry but subdued crowd gathered on 9th Ave between 17th and 18th to protest landlord Morris Moinian's plan to push out the small businesses and rent-regulated tenants of his newly acquired building. I broke this news not long ago and it was exciting to see how quickly information can spread and turn into action.



Andrew Berman, Miguel Acevedo, and Gloria Sukenik organized the demonstration which included, by my estimation, 200 people.

The politicians showed up. Senator Tom Duane spoke about the need for small businesses in a place where "not everybody is rich." Assembly member Dick Gottfried made a plea to bring back commercial rent control, saying, "A neighborhood is not a neighborhood if it's overrun by high-end boutiques, banks, and chain stores." And Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer addressed the city-wide problem, saying, "This isn't about a single store, but an entire neighborhood and the city as a whole."


Berman, Sukenik, Duane, Acevedo


Scott Stringer

One of the most powerful speakers was Phyllis Gonzalez, president of the Elliott-Chelsea Tenants Association, who spoke from her wheelchair about her personal relationship with the shops on the block. "I can be outside any of these stores and in minutes someone comes out and says, 'What can I get for you Ms. Gonzalez?'" This won't happen, she predicted, if she rolls up to the new high-end businesses that are planned. To those people, she's just an undesirable outsider.


Phyllis Gonzalez

She recalled that her children could run for safety into these same stores and their keepers would shelter them, saying, "Stay in here and let me call your mother." Is that going to happen when Equinox moves in? Or the wine bar that's already under construction? I doubt it.



Yes, these businesses are shabby-looking, but they provide an invaluable community for many. They are in integral part of a vulnerable social network--at times, a safety net--that keeps people connected to each other in an increasingly isolating city. When these businesses are gone, the people they serve will fade away. And isn't that the master plan?

More than one speaker noted that the wealthy new New Yorkers will soon grow tired of looking at the housing projects from their floor-to-ceiling windows, their sidewalk cafe tables, and their potted-plant promenades. Then they'll petition the city, with all their deep-pocket power, and the projects will become luxury housing and hotels, the "undesirables" washed away.

Upon the shoulders of these little shops rests a world. Their demise will have a ripple effect on the entire city. And this is how the world ends--not with a bang, but with the whimpers of one man, one woman at a time.

• Wine Bar coming to the block
• Interview with Miguel Acevedo
  
• Death of a Block
• More pics of demonstration on my flickr
• NY1's Coverage
  

No Pecs, No Sex

It's official: Astor Place has traded books for bods. As speculated, the former Barnes & Noble will be a David Barton gym.



Sure, it was a giant chain bookstore--but it does sum up a shift in values, doesn't it? In this one photo we see how much Astor Place has changed very, very recently: The giant luxury condo tower, the glass-box newsstand smothered in billboards, the Starbucks reflected in the glass, and now David Barton and what Michael Musto called "body fascism" in his write-up of a Barton opening where scantily clad boys wore Barton's advertising slogans written on their bare bodies.

We are a city of mirrors within mirrors. Surfaces reflecting onto other surfaces. What depth will be left when all is glass?

Schaller & Weber

Continuing the tour of Yorkville survivors, next door to the Heidelberg restaurant is Schaller & Weber, a family-owned food and butcher shop specializing in wursts since 1937.



Its address, 1654 Second Ave, was originally listed on the MTA's deathlist of private properties to be seized for the Second Ave Subway. The "4-story residential with ground floor meat market" was meant to accommodate the 86th Street station entrance. Thankfully, someone came to their senses and, in a project update, eliminated this entrance, thus sparing the building. (Miraculously, the MTA has also decided to seize a Chase Bank and a Duane Reade! Imagine a city in which eminent domain only affected chains, banks, and luxury condos. What a concept.)


Nusschinken and Nivea

So Schaller & Weber will live on. They seem to be doing well. The place was very busy when I was there and they got some good press during the Pope's recent visit, thanks in part to Mr. Schaller's invention of the "Popewurst," a combination of bockwurst and bratwurst wrapped in a pretzel.



Although business was brisk for the lone cashier, when an elderly customer with a walker needed help getting out the door, the cashier left her post and held the door for the woman. No one in the line complained.

I don't think it's hyperbolic to say that these are the little moments that save us, that renew us and keep us feeling human, connected. When the city is completely taken over by Generation O, with their hollow brand of commerce, these moments won't happen anymore. And some essential part of us will simply die, quietly and with a whimper.

There is more Yorkville to come. Until then, check out ForgottenNY's tour for more Schaller & Weber.

• More pics on my flickr